In my view La La Land and Manchester by The Sea are neck and neck. Okay, Manchester might be a very close second. Moonlight is right up there but it has no torque, no rumble in the engine, and so it has reason to be fearful of Fences, which may overtake it in a week or two. All hail Hell or High Water, the Texas shitkicker bank-robbing drama that everyone has admired all along and is thinking more and more seriously about. Hidden Figures is basically a feel-good uplift thing steeped in ’60s social realism (or vice versa), and that’s mainly why it seems to be positioned ahead of the vaguely similar Loving (50something years ago, racial segregation) as we speak. Jackie is a fascinating film, but it’s mainly about NataliePortman‘s performance. I don’t really know what Sully is doing — do you? Silence will almost certainly wedge itself into the picture once screenings begin.

Earlier this evening somebody on Twitter described Westworld as “soap-opera perfection.” In my book that reads as sprawling, echo-chamberish, complex for complexity’s sake, extended for the sake of filling a second season, hall of mirrors, and Chinese boxes that keep getting smaller and smaller. And with host after host getting stabbed in the gut with a really big fucking knife. (Westworld is as queer for belly stabbings as NicolasWindingRefn‘s Drive.) Tonight’s episode, The Well-Tempered Clavier, came close to pissing me off. It certainly tested my patience.

Robert DeNiro‘s late-campaign rant about Donald Trump (“He’s a punk, he’s a dog”) was unambiguously great. Then came the tragedy of 11.8, and on 11.22 DeNiro was suddenly in a conciliatory mood, at least to go by a quote posted by The Hill: “I would only say that we’re all waiting and hoping that [Trump] will lead the country in a way that’ll benefit everyone and benefit our neighbors around the world. That’s all. We’re waiting and hoping, and we’ll see.” I know what he was saying (i.e., “Let’s wait until he fucks up to criticize him”) but how can a punk and a dog who’s nominated some of the worst people in the world for cabinet positions “lead the country in a way that’ll benefit everyone”? A leopard with ADD doesn’t change his spots — why offer the benefit of the doubt to a beast? But in a just-posted Scott Feinberg interview in The Hollywood Reporter, DeNiro is back in his blunt mode. In the wake of Trump’s election, DeNiro says, “I feel like I did after 9/11.”

Amy Zimmerman’s Daily Beast hit piece about Casey Affleck popped on 11.22 — five days ago. Thanksgiving weekend is a bad time to try and ignite discussion or gain traction. My first reaction was to leave it alone, and as of this morning I was still inclined to ignore it. But two journo pals have written me over the last two days, both asserting that “the takedown campaign has begun.” And yet so far, silence. But if others start hammering away on Monday and Tuesday, I guess there’ll be no stopping it and I’ll have to jump in whole hog. But I respectfully believe that it should stop here and now. Really. Let it go.

Affleck is described in the Zimmerman piece as having sexually harassed and intimidated to some extent I’m Not There producer Amanda White and dp Magdalena Gorka six or seven years ago. Affleck may have behaved unfortunately, but he didn’t do anything that would fall under the headings of “grotesque” or “ghastly” or “criminal.” While he may have acted in a boorish fashion, Affleck didn’t assault or hurt anyone, and while he was hit with a civil lawsuit (which he settled) he was never charged with anything. It was never on that level.

In an 11.4 N.Y. Times interview/profile of Affleck by Cara Buckley, Affleck was asked if he felt responsibility in the matter, and he replied that he did not. ‘It was settled to the satisfaction of all,’ he explained. ‘I was hurt and upset — I am sure all were — but I am over it. It was an unfortunate situation, mostly for the innocent bystanders of the families involved.'”

I believe in a separation of church (cinema) and state (personal lives of filmmakers, p.c. judgments about this or that incident of alleged bad behavior). I’ve heard stories about almost everyone in this town having acted in some kind of questionable or sleazy or abrasive manner at one time or another. It’s a slippery slope when you start saying “yeah, that’s a great film but the producer is an asshole or the lead actor betrayed his girlfriend or I got into a fender-bender with the screenwriter” or whatever.

I didn’t think that Roman Polanski‘s legal troubles in the mid ’70s should have anything to do with how good or award-worthy The Pianist was, but the online pitchforkers sure did. They tried to tar and feather Polanski that year (i.e, 2002) but he won the Best Director Oscar anyway.

Posted on 7.29.12: “All my life I’ve been telling people that Lonely Are The Brave (’62) is one of Kirk Douglas‘s finest films, and that his performance as Jack Burns, an obstinate old-school cowboy, was his most touching. I said this to Douglas when I interviewed him 30-odd years ago in Laredo, Texas [i.e., fall of ’82], and he agreed with me. But have you watched it lately?

“I respect Lonely Are The Brave for what it does right. I love the plainness and the simplicity of it. I love Walter Matthau‘s performance as the sheriff who gets what Douglas’s Jack Burns character (or the Burns metaphor) is basically about, and who sympathizes with him. I love the widescreen black-and-white photography. And early on there’s a very well-handled scene between Burns and an ex-girlfriend, played by Gena Rowlands.

Somebody said yesterday that the enemies and victims of Fidel Castro’s dictatorship felt doubly infuriated by the fact that he lived to the ripe old age of 90. Some would have preferred, I’m supposing, a harsher fate. Like the one that enveloped Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, the notorious Communist despot who was overthrown and machine-gunned to death (along with his despised wife, Elena) 27 years ago.

Ceausescu’s end happened on Christmas day, and began to be reported on 12.26. I was married then. We were all visiting Maggie’s family in Capitola, right near Santa Cruz. Dylan was a month old; Jett was a year and a half.

So after thinking about Castro yesterday I began to re-read summaries of the Romanian revolution, but I mainly focused on videos. [After the jump.] Footage of the execution of the Ceausescus actually missed most of what happened; the shooting began before the camera crew was ready. So I was surprised yesterday to come upon these two photos, which apparently are genuine. The clouds of plaster dust and the flying hat seem especially convincing. It looks like a clip from the final shoot-out in Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch. An excellent job by whomever if the photos are fakes. They may have been on the web for ages but I never saw them until yesterday.

My first thought was that strictly from an aesthetic perspective these are the kind of brutal images that war photographers live for. Robert Capa would’ve given his eye teeth to catch something like this during the Spanish Civil War.

I don’t know how long this has been on Google Maps or how long it’ll last, but I captured it 30 minutes ago (i.e., 9:25 pm Pacific). I don’t know how many people besides Mark Ebner were on to it. Sunday, 11.27 update: I read late last night that “Dump Tower” had been removed, but it still appears if you type in “Trump Tower, New York, NY.”

It’s lame of me to post this, especially given that it’s four days old, but the footage of Gary the cunnilingus dog, starting at 1:50, is worth it in itself. Never before revealed: Sometime in the fall of ’82 I was drinking with a bunch of actors at the old Cafe Central (75th and Columbus), i.e., the place where Bruce Willis used to bartend. Carrie Fisher was sitting a couple of chairs away from me. I waited for the conversation to downshift and then leaned over and said “hey” to her, told her my name, etc. She was in no way obliged to give me the time of day, but I thought I’d take a shot anyway. Badidea. She gave me one of those looks that said “do you want trouble?” Alternate translation: “You’re saying hello for what reason again?” A voice told me I shouldn’t have, but I was batting around .400 back then and figured I probably wouldn’t hit a brick wall.

Silence musical composer Robbie Robertson to Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell on Martin Scorsese‘s latest (from 11.24 post): “It’s really unusual. It’s so different from anything he’s ever done. It’s different from anything around. The whole mood of this movie is different. It’s different visually, the visual tone of it. Some of (Scorsese’s) movies are bang, bang, boom, boom…this one is called Silence, and it’s a meditation — a painful one but beautiful.”

HE question: Painful in what sense? For the Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver‘s Jesuit priest characters, of course, but an underlying shudder hit me when I read that.

Which reminds me: The National Board of Review allegedly saw Silence a few days ago. It will screen for the NY Film Critics Circle on Wednesday, 11.30 — four days hence. On Tuesday, 11.29, Scorsese’s film will be shown to 400 Jesuits in Rome. Guild and Academy screenings will begin next weekend, the very first happening on 12.3. So why hasn’t Paramount sent out invites to big-city blogaroos like myself? If they were planning to screen it for guys like me sometime next week (i.e., between Monday, 11.28 and Friday, 12.2), they’d have said so by now.

First came last Tuesday’s report by New York‘s Gabriel Sherman that Hillary Clinton was being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — which, they strongly suspect, may have been manipulated or hacked.

Then yesterday’s (11.25) Washington Post piece by Eric Chenoweth, co-director of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, reminded that there is abundant evidence that Russian hackers elaborately interfered in U.S. election process over the past several months.

And now comes today’s news that Hillary Clinton’s campaign will support an election recount effort, launched by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, in the battleground state of Wisconsin. TheWrapreports that “as of Saturday morning, Stein’s campaign raised more than $5.7 million online,” and that “the Green Party’s plan is to also file recount efforts in the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.” Which the Clinton campaign is also down with.

Are these recounts likely to change the winner of the Presidential election? No, but if hackers (Russian or otherwise) managed to wrongfully swing a significant number of votes to Trump in any of these three states, that information should be obviously be aired and howled about.

“It’s such an exciting time to be an American because we are at this amazing inflection point,” Paltrow said. “People are clearly tired of the status quo, and…it’s sort of like someone threw it all in the air and we’re going to see how it all lands. It’s very important for me, personally, now more than ever, to create a community and to remember the humanity of everybody and to create love and…understanding. The most amazing thing for me about this election is I felt…‘I don’t understand the opposition well enough at all.’ I’m not going to tell you what side I’m on, but my big takeaway was, ‘I really need to open my mind and understand better because I don’t.’”

At the very least Paltrow has joined that odious community, headed by Jimmy Fallon and Oprah Winfrey, that has sought to normalize Trump by suggesting that he’s not so bad. May she suffer for this.

This five-day-old Apple ad (“Frankie’s Holiday“) is perfect. Delicate, compassionate, handsome, performed just so, exquisite cinematography. The director is Park Pictures‘ Lance Accord, who directed “Misunderstood,” the awesome 2014 Apple ad. He also did the cinematography for Spike Jonze‘s Where The Wild Things Are and Adaptation and Sofia Coppola‘s Lost in Translation, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. Frankenstein’s monster is played by Everybody Loves Raymond‘s Brad Garrett, who stands 6’8″. Fair question: Apart from “Frankie” playing a Perry Como tune on an iPhone, what does this ad have to do with Apple product? Answer: Nothing.